It is essential for the proper operation of a motor vehicle that its wheels be truly round, and also that its wheels be balanced both statically and dynamically. Although equipment is available in the prior art for truing the roundness of tire/wheel combinations, and although separate equipment is also available in the prior art for testing static unbalances in the tire/wheel combination, and for enabling static unbalance compensating weights to be placed at appropriate positions on the tire, there does not appear to be available in the prior art a satisfactory machine in which all the operations necessary to test and correct static and dynamic unbalances, and other distortions in the tire/wheel combination, may be carried out in a single series of operations and in a single machine.
The present invention is intended to provide a simple and inexpensive balance machine, in which a tire/wheel combination may be trued, and then tested for static and dynamic unbalances, so as to permit necessary compensations to be made. This is achieved in the machine of the invention in a relatively simple and straightforward manner, and without the need to remove the tire/wheel combination from the machine, until all the tests and compensations have been made.